


A Special Kiss

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria Safe-Zone, Crack, First Kiss, Fluff, Literal Sugar High, M/M, domestic fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol is making cookies. Rick and Daryl approve and it leads them to a first kiss!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Special Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skarlatha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/gifts).



> I know, I know, I know! You guys are probably tired of seeing me post stuff! But what can I say? The Rickyl muse is calling. 
> 
> This fic is for the lovely [skarlatha](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha), who is absolutely crazy, but I love her. She knows what all of this is about. She knows. :D
> 
> And thank you to the awesome [MermaidSheenaz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidSheenaz), who drops everything to do spur-of-the-minute betaing!

Carol is baking cookies. That in itself is a reason to cause all of Alexandria to halt its actions, put up the extensive work they’ve been doing on the town, and crowd around Carol’s house like a pitchfork mob. Only this gathering of people isn’t set on casting out a devouring monster about to destroy the community, but rather set on devouring sheet after sheet of damn _chocolate chip cookies_ that keeps coming out of the oven in droves. Rick has never been more thankful for chocolate chip factories with packaged and sealed ingredients than he is now.

Of course, the family gets more than the Alexandrians and they just have to deal with that. Carl is leaning against the counter practically swallowing the things whole, near the point of throwing up and, to be real honest, Daryl and Rick aren’t doing much better, arguing over the bigger cookies with the gooey centers. They had, at one point, tried to show Judith the absolute joy of chocolate, but she’d made such a disgusted, unimpressed face that they had chalked up her taste buds to apocalypse ruined and decided more for the rest of them.

Rick is pretty sure Michonne’s hoarding some in a napkin down her shirt, but he isn’t going to say anything.

The beautiful, melodic ding of the timer goes off and another set comes rolling out of the oven. Rick’s mouth waters and he flexes his grubby little hands. He’s already eaten ten...fifteen? Maybe twenty? Hell, he’s lost count, but he doesn’t give one little shit. There are so many things in the apocalypse that kept them down every single day. He’s damn well going to enjoy this.

As per usual, Daryl and Rick fight over the first one that Carol slides to the plate. Daryl gets there first, snatching it out of Rick’s grasp and giving a rare, but throaty cackle in response to Rick’s glare. He shoves the thing in his mouth, swallowing like a starving bear and starts licking the smeared chocolate off his fingers with disgustingly loud smacks.

Rick glares some more. Daryl sticks his chocolate-covered tongue out of his mouth. Rick attempts to smack it.

“ _Boys_ ,” Carol glares, her spatula depositing a second cookie, which Rick grabs this time to the horror of _Dad!_ from Carl.

“He started it,” Rick mumbles, mouth full and Daryl shoulder bumps him hard, sliding him down the counter a little.

Rick won’t stand for that and so he retaliates, shoving Daryl back, just a hair harder than Daryl shoved him. Which results in Daryl shoving again and Rick shoving back and then Daryl shoving...with each shove escalating until they are sliding on the tile trying to keep their feet on the floor and their elbows on the counters.

“ _Daryl!_ ” Rick whines, missing out on the cookie goodness that Michonne--totally down her bra--and Rosita are capitalizing on.

“Stop whining like a pussy and get outta my way,” Daryl grumbles and reaches for a cookie, only to get a firm _smack_ on his hand from the spatula. “JESUS!” he cries out, but Carol just gives him that little sinister lip quirk that’s not quite a smile.

“Only good boys get treats and you two are too hyped up on sugar already.” She waves the spatula. “Out of my kitchen.”

Rick balks and begins to complain. “He started it! I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Out,” Carol demands, her spatula flying close to his nose.

Daryl grumbles, but slides his eyes Rick’s way slowly and conspiratorily. Rick holds them--the color blueprints in a dastardly scheme. He gives the tiniest of nods which Daryl answers in agreement and then, at the exact same time, their hands shoot out and grab handfuls of cookies, smashed up between their knuckles and palms, and then they take off at rapid speeds, hightailing it out the back door to Carol’s disapprovingly firm voice. They are so going to get it later, but neither of them care.

They make it out into the backyard and curve through the streets, trying to jog and eat as they go, laughing like hyenas or, a much more accurate description, schoolboys getting in trouble. Rick hasn’t felt so light in months--probably years--and the sugar flying through his blood is doubly affecting his system that has gone far too long without the substance. He is _hyper_ and buzzing and that energy takes him rattling through the town, Daryl at his heels, until they end up back at his house and collapsing in the front yard, the cookies gone, but the grass soft and welcoming.

Rick is still laughing when his head hits the cool blades of the lawn. Daryl falls right next to him, too, laying on his side, his body rolling a little closer to Rick while he laughs before he turns over onto his back. They stare up at the sky and cackle, their voices slowly softening to giggles, chuckles, until the silence rolls back over them, smooth like a welcome blanket. Rick stares at the clouds overhead, feeling his sticky hands warm from the cookies and the sun.

A light breeze starts up, rattling the grass and their hair and in the middle of it all, Daryl starts to hum. At first, Rick has no idea what he’s singing, the thoughts of music too far gone in these days. But as the song continues, the beat picking up and Daryl’s low, graveling humming getting firmer, louder, he recognizes.

“Is that... _Kelly Clarkson_?”

Daryl laughs again, an open, freeing sound. “Yeah.”

“Why the hell are you singing Kelly Clarkson?”

“It’s a good song.”

“ _For a Moment Like This_. Really?”

“There’s a reason for it,” Daryl says and swings his head so he’s staring straight into Rick’s eyes, his irises light and sparkling. “Merle used to...it’s dumb. Nevermind.”

“No,” Rick tells him with a chuckle, “what? I want to know. Merle used to…”

“Sing it. When he ate chocolate chip cookies.”

Rick frowns deeply, and so Daryl explains. “He messed up the lyrics.” Daryl swallows and then starts singing softly, “ _Some people wait a lifetime...for a cookie like this. Some people search forever...for that one special chip._ ” Rick snorts and Daryl smacks his chest, his face beet red. “Shut _up_ , man. It was stupid, okay? Dumb as a pile of rocks. But he did it. And so that’s what it makes me think of.”

“Didn’t take Merle for a Clarkson fan,” Rick comments honestly.

Daryl shrugs and lifts his fingers so he can stare at them. “ _I_ was the Clarkson fan.”

Rick finds himself snorting again. “ _Really?_ Kelly? Why?”

“Like the song.”

“For a Moment?”

“Yeah. It’s a good song. Always…” Rick recognizes the shift in the conversation from the way Daryl’s shoulders pick back up their tension, from his mouth pulling in pursed, his fingers fidgeting agitatedly. Rick holds his own words in and waits for Daryl to finish. “...always gave me hope.”

“Hope for what?”

Daryl snorts and shakes his head, his hair fanning on the grass. “A special kiss, man. _Shit_.”

Rick laughs, but then trails off when he sees Daryl isn’t joining in this time. He feels like he’s missing a big important chunk of something and so he asks, “...what?”

“Never been kissed,” Daryl mutters and looks off over at the sidewalk.

Rick blinks, a sudden urge filling his nerve-endings and settling firmly in his gut. “What do you _mean_ you’ve never been kissed.”

“Don’t see the point,” Daryl huffs, “in kissin’ for sport. Supposed to mean something. So...never kissed anyone.”

“ _Never_? _Anyone_?”

“Shit, man, don’t make me _feel bad_. Look, I just...never found someone, okay? And that song gave me hope. It’s _stupid_ , but I felt like...like Kelly was tellin’ me I’d find the perfect person and so I could wait. Even if it _is_ for a damn lifetime.”

Rick jerks, his body leaning up on his own accord, balancing itself on an elbow as he stares down at Daryl. Daryl blinks at him, all heavy eyes and parted mouth and Rick hears himself say, “Well, screw that bullshit,” and then it’s happening. Rick is leaning down and swallowing Daryl into himself like they devoured the cookies earlier and Daryl lets out a surprised little huff of a gasp that Rick takes into his own lungs because his mouth is on Daryl’s and Daryl’s is on his own and their tongues are meeting, teeth too, and everything in between that feels like their heartbeats and Daryl tastes of chocolate and promises and a forever that they made together from all the way back to the damn quarry and Rick realizes with a feeling that soars him higher than any sugar, that Daryl is _it_. His _it_. And yeah, it might be totally stupid, it might be the dumbest thing that’s ever happened, but this _is_ special. _Their_ special. And god, hasn’t Rick been waiting for it, too?

He pulls away slowly, but only when Daryl is thoroughly rumpled and kissed within an inch of his life and even when their lips break, Rick keeps contact, his chocolate-covered thumb on Daryl’s cheek and Daryl’s gooey hand in his curls. Daryl opens his eyes and laughs out a quiet breath, staring at Rick with an expression as wide and open as the sky.

And then Rick breaks into chuckles, staring down straight into Daryl’s face and he says, with all the power he can muster, “There, we fixed that problem, Cookie.”

 


End file.
